‘Pineapple Fest strategy to transform agriculture’

SARIKEI: The Pineapple Fest, an annual signature event here, is part of the strategies designed by the Barisan Nasional (BN) government to transform agriculture into one of the country’s main economic activities.

“Various programmes are being implemented by the government to transform agriculture into a lucrative occupation, to improve the socio-economy of the people as well as to ensure the country’s self-sufficiency in food supply,” State Legislative Assembly Speaker Datuk Amar Mohamad Asfia Awang Nasar said when officiating at the launching ceremony of the Pineapple Fest here last Friday night.

“Despite its huge potential in food production industry, it is unfortunate that our country still depended on imported food from other countries,” he lamented.

Last year the state spent RM3.2 billion to import food and livestock.

“It is the BN’s hope that through the transformation of our agriculture sector, the country would not only become self-sufficient in food supply, but also become the main exporter of agriculture products,” he said.

“This would also help us to steer clear of the impact of the escalating price of food in the world market due to several factors such as war and climate change.”

He explained the accusation made by certain quarters that the high cost of living was BN’s fault was totally baseless.

“The real cause was the escalating price of food in the world market, which has nothing to do with BN or any other governments elsewhere,” he said.

He said the BN government had implemented appropriate programmes and strategies to address the situation, thus all sorts of schemes had been formulated to encourage the farming community to switch to modern agriculture practices.

Asfia expressed his confidence that the country’s agriculture transformation programme would be a success story like in many other sectors where the country had done very well.

“Under BN, we have been successful in many areas. When we have none or very few before we achieved independence, now we have thousands kilometers of roads, many schools and hospitals, more cars, more graduates, better living condition, peace, harmony  and prosperity,” he asserted.

In this regards, he called on the people to stay united in exercising their democratic rights to safeguard the ever growing economy, peace and stability they had been enjoying all this while.

“When all the successes are achieved by the capable administration of the BN government, the people ought to maintain their support for continuity,” he added.

During the function, Asfia announced a grant of RM20,000 for the Pineapple Fest Fund which he hoped would achieve its objective to turn the town into the state’s `food heaven’.

Among those present were Asfia’ wife Datin Amar Fatimah, Sarikei Resident Michael Dawi Alli, Betong Resident Datu Romie Sigan Daniel, District Officer Abang Mohd Porkan Abang Budiman, deputy Resident (Social) Alex Liau and  Sarikei district Council’s chairman Chan Phan Chan.

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